Border security and wall around my life

It's pretty obvious to me our political system is broken. I'm not just talking about our president, but the congress as well. Nothing can happen. Some would argue nothing should happen, because government just prevents action. There is probably something to be said for that, but I'm not going to think about it now.

Right now, I'm concerned with the unofficial costs of the war that neither side are bringing up. This includes the long term ongoing costs of health care, especially for post traumatic stress, of our veterans. However, what about the costs to countries neighboring Iraq and their need to assume thousands of refugees? Think about how angry the immigration debate here is, and consider what it should be over there? Think about the long term effects to the effected countries (Iraq losing people and the countries forced to take them in). Ask yourself what our government is doing to support them? Neither political party is truly addressing this, and even if we pulled out tomorrow, there are residual costs, monetary and political, that are incalculable.

Neither party seems much interested in addressing this. The republicans don't really seem to care, and the democrats don't seem to be strong enough to stand up to the republicans. It's broken. The country, our country, needs to start over. Adding a 3rd political party won't help. It's larger than that. It's the entire psyche of America. I actually almost cried today in my car just thinking about it, all those lives. Whenever I get depressed about my life, I just feel stupid and insignificant because so many people have so many more problems than i do. But I think it's the powerlessness that really gets to me, because I don't know what to do. Sometimes it just feels like money and power steamroll everyone, and working toward change just proves how powerless I am. I am afraid of that feeling, and sometimes I think I just keep running from it.

Does that mean our political system is broken, or I am broken? I am afraid of being poor. I have never been poor, and I've never been rich but I'm afraid of that in a way too. My high school basketball coach once said, "Don't be afraid of success." It seemed a foolish thing to say to me then. It seems very profound to me now because now I understand it. Somehow, I can't imagine being anywhere other than the middle, and I'm not sure I want to be. Living in Honduras taught me a lot about who I am and how people who are poor struggle. They still laugh, they still enjoy their lives, but there is this quiet desperation of hopelessness that you can almost smell, you can definately feel it, that I never knew how to take. Do I owe them anything? Do I owe the world anything? The world doesn't owe me anything. Is it enough to donate money and move on? I feel like it's not. Is it worthwhile throwing myself into something, living in relative poverty, to fight a battle that cannot be won?

In the next 4 days I change my life. I'm not sure how yet, but I know i need to switch jobs or location, possibly both. I have an offer from my current company to move to San Francisco, which would keep my middle class and my life relatively easy. Hopefully in SF I would volunteer more and really get involved in something. But is that enough? Does it mean anything? If I move to DC and work for some NGO for human rights or against human trafficking, would I be happier?

I decided a few years back that happiness should be paramount to a person. It's my take on darwin I suppose. I think historically happiness has been through things, family, house, field, etc. For me, it is an interesting job and some financial flexibility. I realize those are things, but I generally don't get to caught up in having the best car, TV, clothes, etc. But I realize those are my choices, you can make your own. The issue I guess I need to resolve, in the next 4 days or the next year if i go to SF, is who am I really? What do I really want? How do I get there?

If i truly believe America is broken, shouldn't I work to fix it? Even if I know it can't be fixed, not in any significant way anyway. It's to big, to many rules, to much history. A violent revolution in America is infeasible, and small scale change is impractical, slow, and doomed to fail to the violence of money and greed. I truly believe that. Politicians, like most of us, watch out for their own. It's broken. Do I care? Where do I go next?